About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Bahrain hires notorious American police chief in order to 'reform' security forces

Funeral of protester who died during demonstations in Bahrain.

Matthew Cassel writes in The Guardian about the new police chief that the rulers of Bahrain hired to 'reform' their security forces, Miami's police commisioner John Timoney. Cassel tells how he once in 2003, in the midst of demonstrations in Miami, met with Timoney's forces: 'it was impossible to move more than a few feet in any direction without
confronting the police and their brutality. The thousands of police
dressed in full riot gear and armed with teargas, rubber bullets,
batons, electric tasers – all of which were used against protesters and
journalists – were everywhere around Miami.'

And he quotes journalist Jeremy Scahill:

"No one should call what Timoney runs in Miami a police force. It's a
paramilitary group. Thousands of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms
with full black body armour and gas masks, marching in unison through
the streets, banging batons against their shields, chanting, 'back …
back … back'. There were armoured personnel carriers and helicopters."